Mill Race Monster

For about a week in November 1974, the southern Indiana city of Columbus was gripped by a monster scare centered on Mill Race Park, along the river on the edge of downtown. Callers told police they had seen a large green beast – hairy, about six feet tall, and armed with long claws. Within days the story had crowds, flashlights and, according to the city’s parks director, a few weapons in the park after dark.

As The Republic of Columbus has retold it, two women described the creature on November 2. On November 5, two men in their twenties said they spotted a big hairy “thing” hiding behind trees near the park’s covered bridge in the late afternoon and again shortly before midnight, and claimed they chased it off. A police spokesman told reporters he hoped it was only “a misguided hobgoblin who lost its sense of time” and did not know Halloween was over. On November 7, more women reported that the creature leapt onto the hood of their car near the boat ramp and scratched the paint.

On November 8, Parks Director Robert Gilligan said officials had counted dozens of cars and people on foot searching the park, some carrying knives and one a gun; that same day dog catcher Rick Duckworth and a colleague saw a figure about 200 feet away that dashed into the woods. The Indianapolis Star gave the story a front-page spread on November 9, and police closed the park at night, worried that armed crowds would hurt each other or shoot someone dressed as a monster. Duckworth said what he saw was simply a person wrapped in green blankets and wearing a mask, and the creature was not reported again.

Half a century later the Mill Race Monster is one of Columbus’s best-loved bits of local lore. The nonprofit Columbus Area Arts Council has turned it into the Mill Race Monster Festival, scheduled for October 23–25, 2026 at Mill Race Park, with art installations, performances and storytelling inspired by the 1974 reports.

Described as a large, green, hairy figure about six feet tall with long claws, sometimes seen standing among trees and once said to bound onto a car. A skeptical witness later saw what looked like a person in green blankets and a mask.

Mill Race Park along the White River’s east fork in Columbus, especially the covered bridge area, the boat ramp and the wooded edges of the park. The reports came in the first half of November 1974, at dusk and after dark.

Local newspapers and tourism writers treat the Mill Race Monster as an urban legend and a Halloween favorite in Columbus, a city better known for modernist architecture. In 2026 the Columbus Area Arts Council launched the Mill Race Monster Festival, a three-day event at the park that invites visitors to read the original newspaper clippings and enjoy artist-made installations and performances based on the story.